


contractual obligations

by TheVoidWalkers



Series: The Void Walkers (official interludes) [2]
Category: The Void Walkers
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 01:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4940953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVoidWalkers/pseuds/TheVoidWalkers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lauré is a steady presence at her flank, a touch to the elbow, a word over her shoulder, and Kahira loves her long before she knows what it means.</p><p>(p028-029 interlude)</p>
            </blockquote>





	contractual obligations

**Author's Note:**

> The Void Walkers is a queer fantasy multimedia project updated every Tuesday over at the-void-walkers.tumblr.com! If you're interested in supporting a queer fantasy webcomic written by a young queer graduate, please have a glance over at the webcomic itself. If you came here from the webcomic, thank you <3

 

There are forty bodies in the room, all with sweat tracking down over the skin and darkening the hair. They all watch her, some subtle and others not, and she holds her head high and walks among them, watching them in turn.

            It would be a lie to say that she noticed Lauré there, but sometimes she has thought about it. Lauré at twenty-five, only a year into her first serious guard posting. Yet to get that broken nose, her hair still uniformly dark. No crinkles at the corners of her eyes, no creases at the corners of her mouth, young and lovely and utterly strange. Kahira thinks about this Lauré, lovely and strange, and is glad that they didn’t meet.

            Because Lauré would probably have been different, but she would still be soft where it counts, and Kahira would have destroyed her.

\------------

            They meet for the first time when Lauré is twenty-nine, and already the grey and the creases have crept into the edges of her. Kahira nods to her, a casual addition to her usual guard company because Cabre has gone to their brother’s wedding, and thinks nothing more of her until Lauré is the only one left standing, her entire lower face red and tacky with blood. There are bodies again but these ones are still or shuddering their way to the end, and Kahira – it’s on her clothes and under her nails and she can smell it and she vomits, vomits again at the sound and sight of it. The attack had come fast and hard, and the casual addition is now the only one left.

  “It’s okay,” the addition tells her, and she pulls a knife from the boot of the nearest dead soldier and presses it into Kahira’s hands, folds her fingers over it when Kahira just _stares_. “It’s okay.”

            Her face twists with something that would likely have been a smile if she didn’t have an ugly gash splitting her lower lip and carving down into her chin, leaving some of her teeth and gum exposed. There were options here, ones people who weren’t Kahira could have taken, options where she shrank back from the gory ruin of Lauré’s face, options where she threw down the knife and cried. Options where she cried because the body closest to her is Tuha and his wife is a widow now, and the next one over is Guravon, who knew stories about Kahira’s detha.

            Kahira takes none of these options. She meets the addition smile for smile and stands, knife in hand. “Good work,” she says, and flips the knife over her hand until the tremors go away. When she looks up the soldier’s smile has gone, and even though Kahira can still see her teeth through the wound on her face she doesn’t feel it anymore. She steps over her own vomit to stand by the soldier’s side, head held high.

  “There could be more of them,” says the guard, but she doesn’t tell Kahira to hide and she likes her for that. “Are you—?”

  “I’m ready,” says Kahira. “You?”

            The soldier smiles again, all teeth and blood and gore. “Yes, ma’am.”

            There _are_ more of them, as it turns out – three more just around the corner, waiting for them. The long priest robes that disguised their lightweight armours have been thrown aside now, and they stand traitorous and unashamed. Kahira says nothing as her one remaining guard immediately steps in front of her, sword up, but she flips the knife in her hand to the proper grip and sets her feet apart. She has made a masterwork from appearances, and she knows exactly what she looks like in this moment – young, bloodied, pretty. She softens her expression and rounds her eyes, and sees the attackers turn their eyes to her like predators scenting prey.

            Their attack is clever, two on her guard and the remaining one circling round for her, and it would have worked if she was anything like what they thought she was. But she isn’t. She’s Kahira, and she has been training to be the North Star her whole life, and she isn’t about to lose it to something as ridiculous as not being trained to fight.

            Kahira killed her first would-be assassin when she was seven years old. By the time she was nine, she had killed six of them. They were ugly deaths, too – a throat sliced with a letter opener, a finger through an eye, broken glass to the belly. Her guards had always been so shocked, and Kahira had seen that and softened it by rounding her shoulders, gentling her voice, and slowly they would forget what she could really do until she was just Kahira again. She was just Kahira, sweet and lovely, the daughter of a beloved ruler.

            Her nadem never knew what she could do. He really _was_ sweet, all giving smiles and soft hands, and Kahira loved him for it even as she rejected that for herself. She started requesting military reports when she was eight, and had an adult’s grasp on Winafore-Tristérn relations before she became a teenager.

            She knows that something is coming. She knows that she has to be ready, and so she trains and works and kills. She learns a thousand different smiles for a thousand different situations, and somewhere along the way she forgets how to do the real ones.

            She smiles now, as the attacker comes for her, and feels satisfaction when they hesitate. In a half-dozen heartbeats they lie gurgling on the floor, and Kahira wipes the blood off on her dress and steps carefully over to where her guard has the one living attacker hoisted up against a wall. “ _Who did this_ ,” they demand, words slurred and furious, blood sliding thick down their chin.  

            Kahira ducks under the guard’s arm and punches her knife up through the throat of the attacker, and they die in a messy gush of red and terror. “It doesn’t matter who did it,” she says, as the guard wheels to look at her in alarm. “There will always be more.”

  “We could stop them—”

  “There will _always_ be more,” says Kahira, and the guard stares and stares and stares at her for endless minutes before jerking her head in a tight nod.

            Kahira knows that this guard won’t forget what she can do, and she doesn’t know how she feels about that.

\------------

            The guard’s name is Lauré, and she is twenty-nine. Kahira asks after her as she rebuilds her ruined guard company, and Captain Kiplafa adds her to the roster. Twenty-nine is young to be a member of the North Star’s personal guard, even for a woman who apparently comes from a long line of guardsfolk, but Kahira – Kahira is _impressed_.

  “I’ve had my eye on that one for a while,” Kiplafa tells her, chest swollen with pride. “She’s got something. A certain quality.”

  “She’s an excellent guard,” says Kahira, watching Lauré as she trains with the replacement squad.

  “Good under pressure?”

  “The best,” says Kahira, and then she freezes because that is not something she says. She sees Kiplafa watching her from the corner of her eye and she turns to him with a challenge in her smile.

  “That’s…unusual of you,” says Kiplafa, and he can get away with pointing it out because he remembers her as a toddler, all gross and helpless. Kahira glares at him for it though, because he might be allowed – he might be the only living person allowed – but it doesn’t mean that she likes it.

\------------

            “I don’t understand you,” Lauré says, a year later.

  “You don’t need to understand me to do your job,” Kahira replies.

  “I’d like to,” says Lauré, and Kahira doesn’t know what to do with something as vulnerable and honest as that. Kahira doesn’t do vulnerable. She barely does honest.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to help you.”

            Kahira stares at Lauré, and Lauré stares back. “Since when do I need help?” she asks, and Lauré makes this sound – this low, hurt sound – and Kahira.

            Kahira _flinches_.

  “It’s okay to accept help from other people,” says Lauré, and she sounds like a schoolteacher with a room full of small children with no grasp on right and wrong, and Kahira should hate that but she doesn’t. “Kahira. It’s okay.”

            There are secrets. Some of them are small, and others are not. Officially, Kahira’s _detha_ was lost to childbirth, but the truth is that she was lost to the sharp knife of a well-placed killer as the infant Kahira lay crying in the next room. Kahira can’t explain how this matters, how this informs what she is, but it does.

  “I don’t need help,” she says, and they both know it’s a lie.

\------------

            Lauré is a steady presence at her flank, a touch to the elbow, a word over her shoulder, and Kahira loves her long before she knows what it means. It isn’t that Kahira hasn’t loved, because she loves many things, but Lauré is – _different_. Lauré is patient and stern and she knows how to tug out Kahira’s smile, the real one, and Kahira loves her. They walk in step and can talk through silence, and Kahira has had friends, only – maybe she hasn’t. She’s never had a Lauré before.

            They are strange friends, far apart in station and unbearably close all at once, and four years brings them closer still. Kahira is twenty-five now, and Lauré is thirty-four, and the crown is a comfortable weight between them.

  “You shouldn’t have to do this,” says Lauré. “There are relatives you could pass the crown to – cousins—”

  “I want to do this,” says Kahira, and Lauré frowns.

            The cold splendour of the Roosting Hall towers all around them, the light bright and clear as it slants in from the open sea. Banners in rich Winaforian greens and yellows stream down the grand columns, stately against the backdrop of the green waves and the grey sky.

  “Kahira,” says Lauré, but Kahira silences her with a sharp look. Lauré huffs a tight breath but falls one step behind and to the side as Kahira leads them towards the lurid purples and blues of the Akorrussian delegation.

            The fashion of Akorrus is so strange to Kahira – every last one of them is draped with finery, right down to the beautiful embroidery on the tops of their shoes. The nobles are distinguished from their attendants by their face paint and elaborate lace veils – veils that could mean death in an assassination attempt, that could be twisted around the throat or used to yank back the head. It’s not that Kahira doesn’t understand it – she’s understood the purpose of costume and poise since she was a child – but it’s just all so _much_ , so over-the-top. Kahira wears her costume in the exactness of her smiles and the proud lift of her head beneath the weight of her crown. It distracts from the trousers she wears beneath her formal robes, from the boots with the practical gripping soles and the hint of a knife sheathe at her hip. Seeing illustrations of Akorrusian formalwear before the delegation’s arrival, she’d wondered if their elaborate fashions were to compensate for a lack of political skill.

            She dismisses that initial thought only seconds into her first conversation with one of them – a young feminine noble with green eyelashes tipped with tiny feathers. Behind the makeup the noble’s eyes are a mirror to Kahira’s own, and Kahira nods her head to the noble and watches their careful smile and thinks that she might like them after all. She hopes so. It would be dreadfully boring to be married to someone she couldn’t even manage small talk with.

  “You must be loving this,” Lauré whispers to her, as they make a slow circuit of the Hall. The Akorrusians watch them, eyes and heads glancing after them in a ripple of colour and finery. “They’re all like you.”

  “It’s something,” says Kahira, glad that Lauré sees it too. “Have you seen anyone you like?”

  “Thought you threw this to find someone _you_ like.”

  “Your opinion, please.”

  “My opinion is that we’re in a room full of very well-dressed vipers and you’d do well to steer clear of all of them.”

            Kahira smiles at her, gentle the way Lauré can tease out of her sometimes in private, and out of the corner of her eye she sees a stillness, a head turned their way for just a moment too long. “Who?” she asks Lauré, who had been facing the right way to see them.

  “Rajor Ulraka,” says Lauré, who, like Kahira, had spent the day before memorising portraits and names and lineages.

            Young, lacking the political talent of his detha’s line. Idealist.

  “Introduce us,” says Kahira.

\------------

            The thing is, Kahira doesn’t want to marry someone boring but she also can’t marry someone exciting, because exciting means clever and clever means she might have to work to keep complete control of her crown. So she is aiming for an in-between, for _charming_ , for _likeable_ , for someone maybe a little idealistic. Someone she can share meals with but also someone she can control.

            Out of all the people in the Hall, Rajor Ulraka was the only one to notice Kahira’s real smile. Not notice – no doubt near all of the delegation noticed – but _stare_. He saw that gentleness and he stared, and that is why Kahira knows she will marry him.

  “The North Star would like your name, sir,” says Lauré, once they reach him. It’s taken twenty minutes of light conversation with introductions with others for them to get to their real target. It wouldn’t do to show their hand too soon, after all.

            Rajor is so hopelessly out-of-keeping with the rest of them that it’s almost painful to watch. He hesitates, almost offers to shake Kahira’s hand, and then bows so deeply his veil touches the floor. He still hasn’t said his name.

            He’s _perfect_.

  “Your name,” Lauré prompts, when he straightens.

  “Rajor Ulraka,” he says, and Kahira’s surprised he doesn’t stammer.

  “Kahira Kuraht,” she returns, and then he does something with his mouth, something quick and amused, and she returns it before she knows what she’s doing. The thing is, they know each other’s names. Of course they do. This is all another part of the costumes they both have to wear.

            The thing is, the first rule Kahira ever learned was that you don’t point out the silliness of it all, and Rajor just broke that rule and she doesn’t know why but, gods help her, she _likes_ it.

            There are eyes on them, dozens upon dozens, and Kahira knows the game is up. “Would you dance with me?” she asks, and Rajor – he hesitates, where anyone else in this room would have been smooth and practised and said yes immediately.

  “I would love to,” he says, and she can tell that he means it.

\------------

            The marriage contract is easy. The ceremony is going to be beautiful – for all it unsettles Kahira, the Akorrusian need for splendour has gone over well with the Winaforian public. They are a popular couple, and Rajor is proving good company.

            It’s perfect, except for when he tries to put a hand on her waist and she nearly breaks his wrist.

  “I thought—”

  “No,” she says. “We don’t owe anything to each other.”

  “We’re going to be married,” he says, and he’s so genuinely confused that she eases a little, tries to change whatever expression she’s wearing that’s making him curve his entire body back away from her.

  “We still don’t owe anything to each other,” she says.

  “I thought—”

  “No,” she says, and he subsides.

            She tries not to think about the fact that he looks relieved.

\------------

  “Kahira. Look at me.”

            The light is low and rich, the bedding sleep-warmed. Kahira presses her face into the pillow and mumbles a _no_ , relaxed here in a way she never is anywhere else. 

  “Kahira, the marriage isn’t going to go away if you pretend it isn’t happening. _He_ isn’t going to go away.”

  “He might.”

            A sigh, softened by fondness. “He won’t. So he’s soft. So it’s making you feel guilty. You picked him _because_ he’s soft. You know he’s the right fit.”

            Kahira has never thought so much about marriage before. She’s always thought about it, in the intense way she plans and maps out everything she does, but she’s never thought about it like _this_ before, all full of things like emotions. After all, what place do emotions have in a royal marriage contract? None. No place. Not even the whisper of a place.

            Rajor – he’s gentle, warm, and though logically Kahira knows he couldn’t have done better than the North Star of Winafore for a wife, some part of her knows that’s a load of crap. He’s a kind man, his compassion somehow surviving the snake pit of Akorrusian politics long enough to make it here, to her. He would have made a loving husband, to the right person. A good nadem, an adored grandnadem. To her he is a tool, and he knows it.

            She rolls onto her side but isn’t quite ready to meet Lauré’s eyes yet. Kahira looks to her cheek instead, and then her eyes drift to the stern line of Lauré’s mouth, to the white scarring that had been her ruined lip on the day they first met.

  “I love you,” she tells Lauré, and they’ve been together like this for three years now but she has never _said_ it before.

  “I love you too,” Lauré replies, easy as breathing.

  “You know this isn’t an ending, right?”

  “I know.”

  “We’re still going to be together.”

  “Kahira, I _know_. What is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

            Lauré presses forwards, kisses the corner of her mouth. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says, the words warm against Kahira’s skin, and Kahira turns into it, catches her lips with her own. They kiss lazily for a few long minutes with the ease of long familiarity, and then they pull back a little to lean their foreheads together. “My North Star,” says Lauré, and Kahira loves her, loves her, loves her.

\------------

            They get married in the morning at the raised dais at the end of the Roosting Hall, and in the afternoon of the same day Lauré earns her surname, and between those things they dance together before their people.

  “You look beautiful,” says Kahira, and the words feel strange in her mouth, but not bad. Like something she needs to try again to figure out.

  “Not like you,” says Rajor. “You’re—”

  “It isn’t a competition,” says Kahira, and he quiets.

  “What are you doing?” he asks, as she turns away from him, their linked hands drawing their arms taught between them. Kahira takes a deep breath, comes back into his grip, his chin slotting over her shoulder. “I don’t want pity.”

  “I like you,” Kahira tells him, and they still, bodies overlapping. “Neither of us wanted this, not really. But I think we can make something good from it.”

            He turns his face towards her, and the blow of hot breath on her ear makes her skin tingle. “Is this honesty or guilt speaking?”

            It’s gutsy, something she wouldn’t have expected from the arrogant judgement she made on their first meeting. Kahira’s face heats with shame. “Honesty,” she bites out, and Rajor turns her away from him and just like that they’re dancing again, feet mirrored, hands entwined.

  “Give me time,” he says, and this time he’s the one to turn away, and she pulls to bring him back to her and it feels like it means something.

            She turns away a few steps later, and then their hands are torn free of one another before she can spin back to him. She stumbles and a hand lands on her shoulder and hauls her to her feet, and she knows it’s Lauré even before she sees her face.

  “Are you—?”

  “I’m fine,” says Kahira, and she is. She isn’t twenty and scared anymore, sitting in the blood of her butchered guards. She sketches the symbols for air and water against her palm, and when a blade flashes silver in the crowd she jerks her hand out and lets the charged spell go. A great spear of ice punches up from the ground, taking with it a woman who jerks and gurgles on its point, and Kahira stands tall and watches her die.

            Lauré intercepts the second attacker before Kahira can turn to help her. It would have been the correct course of action to take – if the attacker was human.

            The attacker is not human. It plunges into the Hall through one of the great glassless arches, a full-grown damasa, all fire and teeth and claws. Lauré meets its biting mouth with her sword, her arm trembling under the strain. Its yellow eyes are orange with burst blood vessels, pupils unfocused pinpricks. Even with just a quick glance Kahira can see that the damasa’s mind has been destroyed by spellwork. Kahira has spent her whole life around the damasa, learnt her spells under the guidance of their Queen, learnt freedom on the backs of their hunters as they soared out over the open sea. She sees this one, maddened and lost, and something in her locks up. She can see the other damasa at the edges of the Hall but it’s too cramped with people for an all-out fight between dragons, and they know it. They pace and growl at the edge of the crowd, smoke pluming from between their teeth, but they can do nothing.

  “Lauré,” she says, as the tremble of Lauré’s arm becomes a judder, the damasa’s jaws inching closer. “Lauré, _move._ ”

  “No,” says Lauré, and she sets one foot further back to brace herself. “ _You_ move so I can do my gods-be-damned job!”

            A hand hooks around Kahira’s elbow, and she looks around and sees Rajor. His expression is strange and grim, and she doesn’t have chance to figure out what it means before he lifts her clear off her feet and drags her into the crowd. Half a breath later she’s behind a wall of green and blue as the other damasa encircle her in a protective ring, but Lauré—

            She’s holding her own, somehow, but then the damasa rears up and its eyes go white with power, and every spellcast in the room jerks away from the feeling of _wrong_. It’s self-cannibalism, almost as brutal as if it were flesh, the long years of the dragon’s life burning up in minutes to power a sudden and terrible power.

            It surges forwards, roaring, and Lauré meets it – and her sword breaks. She staggers back, her blade a short sharp spur in her hands, and the dragon comes again and Lauré steps into its bite with the remains of her sword aimed down its throat, and it’s over.

\------------

            Lauré is given the name _Nilasémo_ , broken-blade, and Kahira is proud and devastated all at once. Lauré has new scars now, a ring of them around her shoulder and chest where she took the bite to get the kill, and they keep her bedridden for weeks. Kahira kisses them in the grey hours of night, and if she cries then Lauré is good enough not to mention it.

  “I’m sorry,” says Rajor, as they eat breakfast together one morning. He’s slipping a little from the elaborate Akorrusian finery he wore in his first few days, and now he’s somewhere in-between. The mix of silks and furs look good on him. He looks older, more confident.

            Kahira throws him a sharp look. “What for?”

  “You love her,” he says, and Kahira opens her mouth to deflect but he shakes his head at her. “And don’t say who. Your guard. Lauré. I’m sorry that you couldn’t marry her.”

  “But I could have,” says Kahira. She sets down her knife and fork and stares down at her plate, startled by her own honesty.

  “Then why did you marry me?”

  “You were the best choice for Winafore,” says Kahira. “Endearing, someone I can have a child with, a means to secure good relations with Akorrus.”

  “Someone you can walk all over,” says Rajor, and Kahira looks up at him, embarrassment twisting through her insides. “No, it’s okay, I get it. I know what I look like, on paper and in person. I’m not the conventional marriage choice, at least not at first glance – but I know the ways in which I am appealing. I’m _soft_ , I’m not an excellent speaker or politician, but I’m good enough to be charming. I’m a pushover, someone you can have in the background to raise the children.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Kahira.

            Rajor bobs his head, a wry smile curling the corners of his mouth. “I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t feel good to hear you say that, but I understand. I know I’m not much of one, but I was raised by politicians. I know how it works. I know why you did it, and if it makes you feel better? I think you made the right choice.”

  “I clearly chose you for your modesty,” says Kahira, when she feels like she can breathe again.

            They’ve just about cleared their plates when the door to the dining suite opens, and Lauré comes limping through. She’s back in her guard armour, no bandages in sight, her head held high and proud. Kahira stands so quickly her chair scrapes over the floor. Her hands curl into fists, but she feels Rajor watching her and stays quiet.

  “Good morning,” says Lauré, as she reaches them, and Kahira wants to touch her so much, wants to cup her face and press a kiss to her brow, but—

  “You can, if you want,” says Rajor. “We don’t need to be tied to each other that way. We both know what this marriage is.”

            Kahira pulls a chair out for Lauré and pushes her down into it before settling back into her own seat. “We know what it is for me, but what do you get?”

  “I don’t know, it’s not so bad,” says Rajor. “This breakfast was pretty good.”

            Kahira huffs in frustration. “You know what I mean. I don’t want you to feel like – like all you’re here for is to be on my arm and help me have babies.”

            Lauré looks between them, and her eyes are round and her eyebrows have shot up towards her hairline. “Kahira – you—”

  “ _What?_ ”

  “Is she always this bad at talking about her feelings?” asks Rajor, and Kahira splutters as Lauré considers him for a long moment and then nods. “My lady Kuraht,” he says, turning back to Kahira. “The way I see this, we’ve been lucky. I like you, you like me. We don’t have to hate this, or each other. We can play the part, and we can be friends.”

  “What if I don’t want to be friends,” says Kahira, and she honestly means to continue but the words dry up in her mouth. She swallows around the lump in her throat, glancing between Rajor and Lauré as they sit in silence, looking at each other.

            The silence threatens to become taut between them, but Kahira is an old hat at hiding discomfort. She waits, quiet, not sure what she’s actually waiting for. Then Rajor shifts, somehow graceful, and both Lauré and Kahira look towards him and the tension eases. He looks up at Kahira and smiles, small and sharp, and she knows he did it on purpose. He's masterful through all of this, pulling and shaping their attention with every gentle shift in posture. Kahira narrows her eyes at him. 

  “Was it an act?” she says, before she can stop herself. “You, in the Roosting Hall.”

Rajor tilts his head, and he is beautiful and he wields it like a knife. It’s disconcertingly like looking into a mirror. “The Akorrusian Court examined the situation and sent the best fit."

  “You played me.”

  “You tried to play me too,” he replies, and they stare at each other, the air between them charged with something akin to respect.

            Lauré leans forwards, propping her elbows on the table between them. They both turn their eyes to her but she’s looking straight ahead, her expression tired and her mouth hooked down at the corners. She waves a hand, lets it drop back to the table. “Just – stop. Both of you.”

  “Lauré—”

  “I love Kahira,” says Lauré. “I love her, but we both know I would make a poor Consort. I’m a guard to my bones. All this charm, this glamour – it’s not in my blood.” She shrugs. “I know where I fit. I’m happy with it.”

Lauré kicks her chair back, still not looking at either of them. Kahira reaches for her, hesitates, then reaches again. She covers Lauré’s nearest hand with her own, folds their fingers together and marvels at the way they fit. Kahira chews the inside of her mouth, takes a fortifying breath. “Promise me you’re happy with it.”

  “I would never lie to you,” says Lauré, and she’s a hair’s breadth from offended. Kahira squeezes her hand in apology, and she softens again.

  “We’re waiting on you, Kahira,” says Rajor, and when Kahira looks across the table he’s staring straight at her. He’s holding Lauré’s other hand under the table, Kahira sees, and she wonders why she didn’t notice it earlier.

            Kahira takes another one of those fortifying breaths. She looks at Lauré, and then at Rajor. “Did you guys – talk about this, or something?”

  “Or something,” says Rajor.

Lauré leans forwards, glances between them. “This doesn’t have to be complicated, you know. We can all give each other different things. Friendship, love, sex – it doesn’t have to be everything between everyone, and there’s no time limit for those feelings to emerge or go away.”

  “You’ve thought about this,” says Kahira.

  “I’ve thought about this a _lot_ ,” Lauré agrees. “It’s not – what we have isn’t something to change around on a whim. So I’ve thought about it, and I’ve talked to Rajor, and now we’re talking to you.”

  “But what about? You, me, him--?"

  “The three of us,” says Lauré, nodding. 

  “…Together?”

  “ _No,_ ” Lauré says. “Or, not yet. Something a bit more – relaxed than that. More like – permission for any combination of togethers?”

  “Why not just the three of us, then, if you’ve both – if you both—”

  “Because _I_ don’t,” says Lauré. “But you and Rajor – you’re married now, and you’re going to have to try for children at some point, right? But I love _you_ , and I want you two to be able to make the best of a shitty situation. If you two can be comfortable, _together_ , then that’s good.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I just want you to know that you won’t be betraying me when the time comes to start making little Kahiras and little Rajors,” says Lauré. "And that you won't be betraying me if you come to love him, and he comes to love you." 

  “That’s not,” Kahira stops, frustrated. “I never thought that. You’ve always – I know that. But what about _you_ , Laure?”

            Rajor makes a sympathetic noise, and even the slight creasing of his brow is beautifully precise. “We’re making a mess of this, aren’t we? _Khers_.”

  “I love Lauré,” says Kahira. "Not you." 

  “I know you do,” Lauré says, lifting a hand to stop Rajor before he can continue. “I know you love me, Kahira, and I love you too. I’m not saying that any of _that_ is going to change. I’m just saying – what’s between you and Rajor, it’s worth pursuing. And I know there is something there – I saw you when you danced together. You can change this marriage into something more real, something that will be healthier for both of you. I want you to know that it’s okay to do that.”

  “I love _you_.”

  “I love you too,” says Lauré, and she turns to Kahira and smiles at her, and even though Kahira’s looking for it she can’t see any sadness in her. “I’m not saying you have to do this. If I misread anything between you and Rajor, then I’m sorry and I won’t bring it up again. I’ll back off.”

  “You didn’t. Misread anything, I mean,” says Kahira, awkward in a way she hasn’t been since before she took the crown. “But – can we wait? I’m not ready for this. It’s not been long enough, and yes, I _like_ him – but I don’t want to think about this now. I need time. And what about you and Rajor?”

  “Take as long as you need,” says Rajor, and Lauré nods. "And as for the second part - we'll see."

            They’re still holding hands beneath the table.

\------------

            The thing is, Rajor spans the space between Kahira and Lauré – space that Kahira didn’t even know was there until he started to patch it up. He is gentle cleverness to Kahira’s brutal wit, sweet mannered where Lauré is all hard edges. He comes to Kahira at dawn and they paint their faces together. He goes to Lauré at dusk and listens to her gripe about trainee guards and her new responsibilities as Guard Captain, and he knows that she doesn’t mean a word of it. He comes to their beds, in time, and eventually it is just _a_ bed - one for all three of them. Kahira sleeps with one leg out and Rajor likes to be smothered in it and Lauré sleeps on her belly with one hand under the pillow near the knife she keeps there, and they fit.

            He’s not perfect. He can be obnoxious, and sometimes his perfectly crafted veneer of sweetness will slip and underneath he will be catty and irritable, and underneath _that_ there is a genuine naivety that makes Kahira want to roll her eyes. But they aren’t perfect either, and days become weeks become months become years, and it _works_.

           


End file.
